"Are you all ready?" shouted d.i.c.k.

"Ay, ay, sir, all ready!" answered Simpson, swaying up the heavy hammer over his shoulder.

"Then _strike_!" yelled d.i.c.k; and crash fell the two hammers simultaneously; down dropped the spur-sh.o.r.es, and a tremor appeared to thrill the little craft throughout her entire fabric.

For a single moment she seemed to hang--to d.i.c.k's unmitigated consternation, but the next second he saw her begin to move with an almost imperceptible gliding motion toward the water. Flora saw it too, and raising the bottle of wine in her hand, dashed it against the little craft's bows, shattering the gla.s.s to pieces and causing the wine to cream over the brightly burnished copper as she cried--

"G.o.d bless the _Flora_ and grant her success!"

The speed of the handsome little clipper rapidly increased, and presently she entered the water with a headlong rush, curtseying as gracefully as though she had learned the trick from her namesake, ere she recovered herself and floated lightly as a soap-bubble on the water.

(For although d.i.c.k had found an entire outfit of lead ballast for her, already cast to the shape of her hull, he had only put part of it aboard her, leaving out about six tons, in place of which he intended to stow the gold from the treasure-cave.) The little craft held her way for quite an extraordinary distance--showing thereby in the most practical of all ways the excellence and beauty of her lines--and when at length she came to rest Nicholls let go her anchor and waved his hand by way of a signal that all was well. Whereupon d.i.c.k and Simpson jumped into the canoe and paddled off to fetch him ash.o.r.e.

The moment had now arrived when it became necessary for Leslie to come to some definite conclusion as to how far he would take these two men into his confidence. He had watched them both with the utmost keenness from the first moment of his connection with them, and everything that he had seen in their speech and behaviour had led him to the conviction that they were absolutely honest, loyal, and trustworthy. On the other hand, he had heard of cases wherein men even as trustworthy as he believed these two to be had succ.u.mbed to the influence of some sudden, over-powering temptation; and there could be no question that a treasure of such enormous value as that lying hidden in the cave const.i.tuted a temptation sufficient to strain to its utmost limit the honesty of any but the most thoroughly conscientious man. He therefore finally settled the matter with himself by determining upon a compromise; he would take Nicholls and Simpson into his confidence just so far as was absolutely necessary, and no farther.

Therefore, when they all landed on the beach, after taking Nicholls off the cutter, Leslie invited the two men to accompany him to the tent, there to empty their last bottle of champagne in drinking to the success of the new craft. And when this ceremony had been duly performed, Leslie turned to the two men, and said--

"And now, lads, the cutter having been successfully got into the water, I find myself in the position of being able to make to you both a certain proposal and offer that has long been in my mind. When I took you two men off your raft, and brought you ash.o.r.e here in a dying condition, that tiny craft that floats so jauntily out there on the smooth waters of the lagoon was only in frame--a mere skeleton. But you saw of what that skeleton was composed; you saw that it was made of tough steel firmly and substantially put together with stout bolts and rivets. And since then you have a.s.sisted me to bring forward the little craft from what she then was to what she is to-day; you have seen and handled the materials that have been worked into her, and n.o.body knows better than yourselves what careful and faithful labour and workmanship has been bestowed upon the putting of her together. Now, I want you to give me your honest opinion, as sailors, of that little craft. You know that she was built for the sole purpose of carrying us all away from this island--which, I may tell you, lies well in the heart of the Pacific; I want you, as sailors of experience, to say whether you will feel any hesitation in trusting your lives to her."

Nicholls laughed heartily at the question; and Simpson grinned corroboratively.

"Why," exclaimed the former, "men have gone more than halfway round the world in craft that aren't to be mentioned on the same day as that dandy little packet! The last time that I was in Sydney--which was last year--there was a Yankee chap there that had made the voyage from America in a dug-out canoe that he had decked over and rigged as a three-masted schooner--he and another chap--and they intended to go on and complete the trip round the world. I don't mind saying that I shouldn't have altogether cared about making such a voyage myself in such a craft; but yonder little beauty's quite a different story. I'd be as willing to ship in her as in anything else--provided that it was made worth my while. What say you, bo'sun?"

"Same here," answered Simpson, the man of brevities.

"You really mean it? You are both speaking in serious earnest?"

demanded Leslie.

"_I_ am, most certainly," answered Nicholls; "in proof of which I intend to sail with you when you leave the island--if you'll take me, Mr Leslie; and I don't think you are the man to refuse two poor castaways a pa.s.sage, especially as you've got plenty of room aboard there for us both, and we can make ourselves useful enough to pay for our pa.s.sages."

"Very well, then," said Leslie. "Now, this is the proposal that I have to make to you both. I have here, on this island, snugly stowed away in a cave, certain valuables that I am most anxious to personally convey to England; and for certain reasons with which I need not trouble you, I am equally anxious to get them home without bringing them under the notice of the authorities, and the only way in which this can be done is to take them home _in the cutter_. My plan is to make my way in the first instance to Australia, where Miss Trevor will leave the _Flora_. At Melbourne I shall revictual, and thence proceed to Capetown, where I shall do the like, sailing thence to England, with a call, perhaps, at some of the Canaries, if necessary. Now, if you have no fancy for such a long trip as that which I have sketched out, in so small a craft as the _Flora_, you will of course be perfectly free to leave her upon our arrival at Melbourne. But if, on the other hand, you are willing to ship with me for the whole voyage, I think I can make it quite worth your while, for I shall require at least two men whom I can absolutely trust, and I believe you two to be those men. Now, what amount would you consider to be adequate remuneration for the run home from here?"

"How long do you reckon the trip is going to take, sir?" inquired Nicholls.

"Um, let me see," considered Leslie, making a mental calculation. "We ought to do it comfortably in about one hundred and eighty days--six months; call it seven months, if you like."

Nicholls considered for a few minutes, and then looked up and said--

"Would sixty pounds be too much to ask, Mr Leslie, taking everything into consideration?"

"What do _you_ say, Simpson?" asked Leslie, with a smile.

"Sixty pounds 'd satisfy _me_," answered the boatswain.

"Very well," said d.i.c.k. "Now, this is what I will do with you both. It will be worth a thousand pounds to me to get these valuables of mine safely home, as I said, without attracting attention. If, therefore, you will ship for the run home with me, rendering me all the a.s.sistance necessary to take the _Flora_ and her cargo safely to some port, to be hereafter decided upon, in the English Channel, I will give you my written bond to pay each of you five hundred pounds sterling within one calendar month of the date of our arrival. How will that suit you?"

"It will suit me better than any job I've ever yet dropped upon, and I say 'done with you, sir, and many thanks,'" answered Nicholls, with enthusiasm.

"And you, Simpson?" demanded d.i.c.k.

"Good enough!" answered the boatswain, with his usual brevity.

"Very well, then; that is settled," said Leslie. "I will draw up an agreement in triplicate at once, which we can all sign, each retaining a copy; and that will put the whole matter upon a thoroughly ship-shape and satisfactory basis all round."

d.i.c.k prepared the agreement there and then, and having read over to the two seamen the first draft, and obtained their unqualified approval of it, he at once proceeded to make the two additional copies. All three were then duly signed, Flora also attaching her signature as a witness, and the transaction was thereupon completed.

"Now," said d.i.c.k, "that bit of business being arranged, I should like to take the cutter round to a little cove at no great distance from the cave where my valuables are concealed, and get them aboard her at once, before her decks are hampered up with gear and what not; we will therefore get the catamaran under way, and tow her round. We can leave the catamaran in the cove also, and walk back by way of change.

Moreover, it will afford us the opportunity to stretch our legs a bit; we shall not get very much more walking exercise now until we arrive in England."

As the three men were wending their way down to the beach, Leslie's eyes happened to fall upon the case of rifle and revolver ammunition from which he had been drawing his supplies. It was the only case of ammunition that he possessed; and now, with a sudden fear that in the hurry of departure it might be forgotten, he said to Nicholls--

"See here, Nicholls, we might just as well be carrying something with us as go down to the catamaran empty-handed. If you and Simpson will lay hold of that case of ammunition, I will bring along half a dozen rifles, and we shall then be quite as well armed as there will be any need for us to be. We may not want them, but, on the other hand, we _may_, and if we should happen to want them at all, we shall probably want them very badly."

Upon taking the cutter in tow it was found that she towed very lightly, offering only a trifling resistance to the catamaran after both had fairly got way upon them; and in little more than half an hour both craft were off the entrance to the cove. Yet so cunningly had Nature concealed it that though Leslie knew almost to an inch where to look for it, he had the utmost difficulty in finding it, and had he not possessed a personal knowledge of its existence, and therefore persisted in his search, he would never have found it. But, after pa.s.sing the opening no less than four times without being able to find it, he managed to hit it off at his fifth attempt, and, ten minutes later, both craft were inside and snugly moored to the rocky side of the basin, the catamaran being placed innermost to protect the dainty, freshly painted sides of the cutter from chafe against the rock.

Nicholls and Simpson betrayed the profoundest astonishment and admiration at the singularly perfect adaptation of the cove to the purposes of a harbour for small craft, and could scarcely be persuaded to drag themselves away from the water's edge. But when at length they had been induced to climb up the almost vertical face of the cliffs and found themselves at the mouth of the treasure-cave, their wonder at what they saw was greater than ever. They uttered loud exclamations of astonishment when they were invited to lift one of the hide-bound gold bricks, and felt the unexpected weight of it; but neither of them appeared to have the remotest suspicion of the real nature of the stuff they were handling, Nicholls merely commenting upon its excellence as ballast, and lauding Leslie's wisdom in having decided to so use it instead of those portions of the lead castings that he had rejected.

Indeed, both men appeared to regard the queer little black leather-- bound blocks as merely something especially suitable for ballast, and taken by d.i.c.k for that purpose and reason alone; it was the ma.s.sive, ancient-looking, carved chests, with their elaborate binding of rusty metal-work that they appeared to regard as the receptacles of the "valuables" about the safety of which Leslie was so anxious.

They managed to get sixty of the gold bricks down aboard the cutter and stowed under her cabin floor that same afternoon, and by the time that they had accomplished this, the level rays of the declining sun warned them that the moment had arrived when they ought to be starting upon their march across country toward their camp.

The broken character of the country claimed a larger share of Leslie's attention upon this occasion than when he had last visited the cave.

Perhaps it was because his mind was now more at rest than it had then been--for the cutter that was at the former period merely a possibility, was now an actuality; and, more than that, already carried a very respectable little fortune snugly stowed away in her interior; or, possibly--who can tell?--there may have been some vague, unsuspected mental prevision that ere long an intimate knowledge of every detail of those curiously shapeless earthquake upheavals would be of priceless value to him. Be that as it may, he now looked about him with the eyes of the warrior rather than the explorer, noting with astonishment the wonderful way in which the earthquake had split and piled up the rocks into the form of a natural impregnable fortress, including both the cavern and the basin. There was one point, and one only, at which this natural fortress could be entered, and upon his previous visit he had pa.s.sed through it twice without noting this fact; now, however, he not only took notice of it, but saw also that a small rampart, composed of a dozen or so of stones, that could be arranged in five minutes, would enable a single man to hold the place against an army, or, at all events, so long as his ammunition held out. So strongly did this idea impress itself upon him that he could not resist the temptation to actually construct this small rampart then and there.

"Stop a moment, you two," he cried; "I have a fancy for trying a little experiment. Just bring me along a few of the heaviest pieces of rock that you can conveniently handle."

And, seizing a block himself, he carried it to a certain point, and threw it on the ground. Then on and about this he piled the others that were brought to him until, within ten minutes, he had constructed a breastwork of dimensions sufficient to efficiently screen one man from the fire of an enemy, while it enabled him, through a small loophole, to effectually enfilade the one only spot at which that enemy could possibly enter. He flung himself down behind the barricade and peeped through the loophole. The defence was now complete.

"There," he exclaimed, in tones of perfect satisfaction, "if anybody should ever come here in the future, and require a citadel upon which to retreat against overwhelming odds, this is the place. And so long as he can command the nerve to remain behind this barricade and maintain a steady rifle-fire upon that narrow gap--through which, as you may see, only one man can pa.s.s at a time--he will be absolutely safe. Well, thank G.o.d, _we_ are not likely to need its protection, for we ought to be at sea on the third evening from now."

The following day was devoted by the three men to the task of putting the remainder of the gold bricks on board the cutter; and this they succeeded in accomplishing before knocking-off work for the day; but it meant that they had to work hard and late to do it. Meanwhile Flora was equally busily engaged upon the work of getting together, from the heterogeneous a.s.sortment of clothing that had formed part of the _Mermaid's_ cargo, a sufficient stock to see her through her two months'

voyage to the other side of the Pacific. Knowing that she was thus engaged, and would doubtless be fatigued by the time that she had arrived at the end of her day's work, Leslie was considerably surprised when, having traversed about half the distance between the cove and the camp, he encountered her; she having evidently walked out from the camp to meet him. Moreover he saw at once that this encounter was not merely the result of a natural desire on the part of a girl to meet her lover, it was something more momentous than that, for there was an excited look in her eyes that there was no mistaking. So, doffing his cap to her as she joined his little party, he said, with a smile--

"Well, dear, what is it? You have news of some kind for us, I see; but not bad news, I hope."

"Oh no," she replied; "it is not bad news at all--at least I should think not. It is simply that there is a ship approaching the island, and as I thought you would be glad to know it as soon as possible, I decided to come on and tell you at once."

"Thanks, very much," replied d.i.c.k. "This is indeed interesting news.

Whereabouts is she, and how far off?"

"She is over there, in that direction," replied Flora, pointing to the north-westward. "It was by the merest accident that I happened to see her. I took the fancy to go up toward Mermaid Head to gather a bouquet of those lovely orchids that grow in that direction, thinking that probably it would be my last opportunity to get any of them, and it was while I was gathering them that I saw her. She is still a good distance away; and I might have thought that she was merely pa.s.sing the island, for when I first saw her she was sailing in that direction,"--sweeping her hand from west to east; "but while I was still watching her she turned round, and now is coming nearly straight for the island."

"Ah," remarked Leslie, thoughtfully, "this is certainly interesting, and I am much obliged to you for coming out to tell us. Let us be getting on toward the camp; there may still be time for me to run up to the point and have a look at her ere nightfall." Then, following up his own train of thought, he added, "If she be as far off as you describe, she will hardly be near enough to hit off the entrance channel and come inside before dark--that is to say, if she really means to pay us a visit."

Nothing more was said upon the subject just then; but as soon as Leslie reached the camp he procured the telescope, and, hurrying away to the nearest point from which it would be possible to obtain a view of the stranger, subjected her to as careful a scrutiny as the circ.u.mstances permitted.

After all, however, there was not very much to be learned about her, for she was about twelve miles distant, dead to leeward of the island, and as the sun was already dipping below the horizon, the time available for observation was but short. He could distinguish, however, that she was barque-rigged, and apparently a very smart little vessel of about three hundred tons or thereabout. That she was beating up to fetch the island was obvious; for whereas when Leslie first sighted her she was on the port tack, heading south, she shortly afterwards tacked to the eastward, thus--in conjunction with what Flora had already observed--clearly indicating that her purpose was at least to pa.s.s the island as closely as possible, if not to actually touch at it. And that the latter was her intention Leslie had no manner of doubt; for if she had intended merely to pa.s.s it closely by, there would have been no need for her to have made that last board to the eastward; by standing on to the southward she would have slid down under the lee of the island quite closely enough to have made the most detailed observations that her commander might have deemed necessary. There was one peculiarity connected with her that for some inexplicable reason took hold upon Leslie's mind with a persistence that was positively worrying to him, yet it was a peculiarity of apparently the most trivial and unimportant character; it was simply that when she tacked he noticed--with that keenness of observation that is so peculiarly the attribute of the highly trained naval officer--that her yards were swung very slowly, and one after the other, as though she were very short-handed, even for a merchant vessel.

As Leslie closed the telescope and thoughtfully wended his way back toward the camp, he found himself perplexed by the presence within his mind of two strangely conflicting trains of thought. On the one hand, here was a ship approaching the island, and either intending to make a call at it, or to approach it so closely that it would be the simplest matter in the world for him to go out on the catamaran and intercept her. By acting thus he would be able, without any difficulty, to secure for his companions and himself transport to some civilised port from which it would be easy for them to obtain a pa.s.sage to England, even though the barque herself should not be homeward-bound. And that transport would be at least of as safe a character as that afforded by the cutter, while it would be infinitely more comfortable, at all events for Flora, should they happen to encounter bad weather. Following this train of thought, it seemed to Leslie that the obvious commonsense course for him to pursue was to take the catamaran, go out to the barque, and, acquainting the skipper with all the circ.u.mstances relating to the presence of the little party upon the island, pilot her into the lagoon, with the view of coming to some arrangement for the shipping of himself and his companions on board her on the morrow.

But against this plan there was the thought of the treasure. What was to be done with it? Would it be prudent or advisable to entrust a property of such enormous value to a crew of absolute strangers, of whose characters he would have no time or opportunity to judge? Upon this point he had no doubt whatever; the answer to this question was a most emphatic negative. But if--so ran his thoughts--he was not prepared to ship the treasure aboard this unknown barque, and entrust it to her unknown crew, what was he to do with it? Was he to leave it concealed in the cavern that had already been its hiding-place for so many years, and return to fetch it away at some more convenient season?